From he, who has very little, they took away $3.73 (per week). Not because he did something wrong, but because a government department – supported by aParty in power that looks down on the poor – could.

In a post on his Kiwiblog site titled “Len’s gaggle of spin doctors”, Mr Farrar said Mr Brown’s hiring of Dan Lambert took his tally of spin doctors to six – more than the entire parliamentary Labour Party.

Labour has five parliamentary press secretaries and a part-time speech writer for 34 MPs. Prime Minister John Key has four press secretaries and one media assistant.

The Herald story, written by Bernard Orsman, seemed so unlikely that I searched out Kiwiblog to see if Farrar’s comments were accurately reported.

Indeed they were.

Len’s gaggle of spin doctors

February 16th, 2013 at 3:00 pm by David Farrar

Len Brown has just hired his sixth spin doctor. That’s six spin doctors, all funded by the ratepayer, working in Len’s private office. That isn’t six spin doctors for the entire Auckland Council. That is six spin doctors just for Len.

Started this month is Dan Lambert as Len’s propaganda manager. He comes from the United Kingdom.

Dan joins Glyn Jones who was the chief spin doctor, and who is now called Media Communications Manager.

Len also has a senior press secretary, a communications advisor, former Clark spin doctor David Lewis as a media consultant and a speech writer on top of that.

Len has more spin doctors than the entire Parliamentary Labour Party (they have five). The previous Mayor of Auckland had just one – Cameron Brewer.

Should Auckland ratepayers be funding Len’s reelection campaign?

Talking of the election, isn’t it time also for C&R and their friends in Auckland to get their shit together and select a Mayoral candidate. Otherwise Len and his six spin doctors will have too easy a time of it.

Now, despite the fact that Farrar is a National Party supporter/member and has worked for successive National governments – one might still expect him to report such issues with perhaps a measure of balance.

Because the way he tells it, leaves a whole lot out of the picture.

Especially when Cameron Brewer in the same NZ Herald article said “nobody would be able to match Mr Brown’s army of spin doctors, advisers and consultants“.

Mr Brewer has also worked as a former spin doctor to ex-Auckland City Mayor John Banks, ex-Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, and very ex-Act leader Rodney Hide.

Farrar mis-represented the issue by omission.

Brewer mis-represented the issue with an outright lie.

If citizens really want to look at where their tax-dollars are going to, I would refer the reader’s attention to an article written by NBR’s Matt Nippert, in August 2010, about the Prime Minister’s Office. (This article is now behind a paywall, but an excerpt can be found on Bryce Edward’s “Liberation” blog.)

“…the ninth floor of the Beehive contains the most spinners and advisers in New Zealand history. Whereas Helen Clark employed six communications staff in her office, currently seven staff in the PMO are listed as having communications roles. And whereas Miss Clark’s chief of staff Heather Simpson managed two political advisers, Mr Eagleson has five reporting to him along with Mr de Joux as a deputy.”

In September 2010, Bryce Edwards, political lecturer at University of Otago, wrote,

The PMO has about 25 highly-professional staff working in it. Under Helen Clark’s rule, Heather Simpson (pictured on the right) was of course the head of the unit, and thus the second in command of the Labour Government. Simpson’s replacement is Wayne Eagleson, who like Heather Simpson is highly aversive to both media scrutiny and political risk.

In his unit of about 25, he has people working for him such as Kevin Taylor (Chief Press Secretary), Phil de Joux (Deputy Chief of Staff, former head of the National Party research unit), Sarah Boyle (Senior Adviser; apparently a “guru of the Official Information Act”), Stephen Woodhouse (Senior Private Secretary), Grant Johnston (Chief Policy Adviser; former Treasury policy wonk and partner of columnist Joanne Black), Jason Ede (Senior Adviser), Nicola Willis (Senior Advisor), Lesley Hamilton (Press Secretary), and Paula Oliver (Press Secretary). Some of these ‘shadowy people’ we already know something of, but generally their immense power is unexamined.

Currently, according to the Prime Minister’s own website, just one group numbered over a dozen,

Policy Advisory Group

The Policy Advisory Group was formally established in 1990 within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC). Prior to that time, policy advisory services were provided through the forerunners of DPMC.

The Group consists of a director and 13 policy advisors, with a range of skills and experience including legal, business, economic and social policy. The mix of skills changes from time to time, with changes in staff.

The role of the Policy Advisory Group is to support the Prime Minister as leader of the Government…

… From time to time Advisors lead policy projects specially commissioned by the Prime Minister to “cut through” on issues of significance.

And there’s more here about the Department of Prime Minister’s Office: About DPMC.

But of course, none of this merit’s Mr Farrar’s attention. The Prime Minister may have 25 (or more, by now) spin-doctors – but the owner of Kiwiblog prefers instead to focus on the mayor of Auckland with his supposed six advisors.

This was not always the case. Once upon a time, Mr Farrar was very concerned about the numbers of communication staff working for the government and it’s various Departments,

Three amazing events that’ve taken place this last months, and which serves to remind us how unpredictable and weird the Universe can really be…

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Sensational!!!

Richard III’s skeleton discovered!

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The grave of Richard III was discovered on 4 February, under a carpark in Leicester (fitting, being the 21st Century), and caused a worldwide sensation as this 528 year old King was prominent in British history as well as the subject of a play by William Shakespeare…

Meteor shower over Russia!

Straight out of a science fiction movie, a huge meteor entered the atmosphere and exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, three days ago. Luckily, it exploded into fragments high up in the atmosphere.

Had it impacted the ground intact, the devastation and loss of life would’ve been far more severe.

It was a small taste of what our dino cuzzies must’ve experienced, 65 million years ago…

Hekia Parata fronts on Campbell Live – Sceptics Society shocked!

After sending her ‘flunkies’ (see previous blogopost: Parata, Bennett, and Collins – what have they been up to?) to front for her and take media heat for Christchurch schools closures, the Novopay debacle, and other foul-ups – Education Minister, Hekia Parata finally fronted for an interview with TV3’s John Campbell.

The media training that Parata has been given seems to have worked. Her demented grin…

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– was gone.

Meanwhile, in ‘quake ravaged Christchurch, where increased stress is causing children to have nightmares and instances of bedwetting has skyrocketed (see: Quakes traumatise kids), Parata has decided not to close or amalgamate 31 schools.

Why not further gut the heart out of a community that has lost 185 of it’s people to a violent, natural disaster; thousands of homes damages or destroyed; businesses closed; insurance companies and EQC dicking people around; and entire neighbourhoods written off.

In case anyone needed proof that National has no heart, well, look no further.

And for all you National supporters out there who don’t give a rats because it hasn’t happened to you… well, Karma is working over-time at present.

Your turn will come.

To the people of Christchurch, and for those shocked by today’s announcements, I just want to say that a whole lot of your fellow New Zealanders are with you, in spirit at least. I just hope there’s a change of government before Parata can implement her rotten-to-the-core, penny-pinching, policies.